The Greatest Wealth In California
KHSL TV reports from California. “Chico’s housing market is slowly rebounding with more homes selling this year than last, but at lower prices. The City Finance Committee got an update on the market this week, with staff reporting that 47 percent of the total homes sold this year sold for less than the borrowers owed. And the demand is down, in part because it’s harder to qualify for a loan. Debbie Brodie is a State Director for the California Association of Realtors. She says, ‘In 2005 you could get into a house with no money down, no closing costs, no job. Those days are gone.’”
The Asian Journal. “Three years into the mortgage meltdown, California homeowners still have little relief from the foreclosure crisis. Increasingly, homeowners are taking matters into their own hands — stepping up pressure on banks, going after mortgage scammers and educating themselves about how to avoid becoming victims of foreclosure or fraud.”
“Peggy Mears has fought for three years to keep her three-bedroom house in Fontana, Calif. Mears, hoping to lower her monthly mortgage payments, contacted her lender OneWest Bank (formerly IndyMac Bank) to modify the terms of her home loan. Three years and three loan modifications later, Mears says she is still at risk of losing her home.”
“One trial modification lowered her monthly payment by $50, while another increased it by $300. All the while, Mears’ family lived under daily threat of losing their home, because her bank continued with foreclosure proceedings even as they worked with Mears to modify her home loan — a practice banks call ‘dual track.’”
“‘I was stressed out — I couldn’t sleep at night and my nerves were on end,’ Mears told a group of ethnic-media journalists at a news briefing in Los Angeles last Thursday. Mears eventually got fed-up and joined the Home Defenders League. Last December, Mears and two dozen other homeowners were arrested after holding a sit-in at a JP Morgan Chase Bank branch in downtown Los Angeles. They demanded that the bank halt foreclosures and work more effectively with homeowners to modify their loans.”
“‘We were making a statement: If you refuse to let us live in our homes, we will live in your home,’ Mears said.”
“‘It is embarrassing to say, ‘I’m losing my home,’ she said. ‘It hurts, especially after you’ve lived there for 20 years and you’ve worked hard all your life and done everything that you are supposed to do.’ Mears said homeowners facing foreclosure feel ashamed and don’t want to speak out about the prospect of losing their homes, which she called ‘your greatest wealth.’”
The Ventura County Star. “California homeowners and some former homeowners can take heart from this week’s announcement of a crackdown on mortgage fraud in the Golden State. The Attorney General’s Office said it has created a task force to investigate and prosecute some of the unfair practices that let down homeowners, cost some families their homes and trashed the housing market.”
“State Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office cited estimates that the foreclosure crisis has cost California homeowners as much as $640 billion in equity.”
From KABC. “Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the creation of a 25-person task force to target businesses that Harris says helped cause the downfall of the housing market and put thousands of houses into foreclosure. ‘California, as the biggest state in the country, was hit the hardest,’ said Harris. ‘Last year alone there were nearly 550,000 foreclosure filings against California homes.’”
“‘The American Dream — for most of us, home ownership is a pillar of that dream, and too many people in this city have lost that dream,’ said Villaraigosa at Monday’s news conference.”
“‘Where there is the evidence to prove a crime, you can be sure those crimes will be prosecuted,’ said Harris.”
The Record Searchlight. “A continued stream of Shasta County foreclosures early this year meant opportunity for first-time homebuyers chasing record affordability and investors looking for predictable returns. Area real estate agents say banks are doing a good job of manipulating the market by not flooding the area with foreclosures, which would drive down values more.”
“‘If you were … building a monster subdivision, say 200 homes, you have a choice of building the houses and putting them all on the market at the same time, which would cause your own prices to decline, or release the homes as demand would allow. Which would you choose?’ said Josh Barker of ReMax Town & Country in Redding.”
The Modesto Bee. “Stanislaus County’s median home price remained fairly flat during April, sticking at $130,000. That’s the same as March and about what it has been the past two years. Lenders own thousands of those homes. Foreclosure-Radar estimates banks own 2,289 homes in Stanislaus, 3,218 in San Joaquin and 1,232 in Merced. More foreclosures are in the works.”
The Merced Sun Star. “Rep. Dennis Cardoza gave the following reaction to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s comments that the U.S. has ’several more years to go’ before the housing market recovers, and ‘it’s going to take time still to heal.’”
“‘This Administration’s hands-off approach to the housing crisis is stunning, and Mr. Geithner’s laissez-faire remarks show they have no intention of seriously attacking the central cause of our current economic downturn,’ Cardoza said in a news release. ‘The half-baked federal housing programs created thus far have failed to stem the crisis. In fact, more Americans will go into foreclosure this year than in any year since the housing crisis began. How many more families must needlessly lose their homes before this Administration wakes up?’”
The Daily Bulletin. “Apparently the foreclosure crisis is finally being reflected in Inland Valley population figures - which, unusually for this fast-growing area, show a big drop. Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga, for example, fell by 10,000 residents each from 2010, according to estimates by the state Department of Finance, and most of our other cities also emptied by a few thousand residents.”
‘Perhaps the cruelest blow was to Pomona. Its population was said to have withered by 14,000 in one year to fall below 150,000. Instead of being outstripped only by L.A., Long Beach, Glendale and Santa Clarita, Pomona is now smaller than Lancaster and Palmdale too. Meanwhile, Lancaster (157,795) and Palmdale (153,334) both grew year-over-year, Lancaster by 10,000 and Palmdale by 700. People are flocking to Lancaster? Huh. Were they priced out of Fresno?”
“Foreclosures certainly played a large part in the lower numbers, although how much is hard to say, demographic specialist Dan Sheya of the Finance Department told me. ‘People had to go somewhere and they didn’t always stay in the same area,’ Sheya said.”
“‘Pomona wasn’t the only one to drop,’ Sheya noted. “Every large city in California got hit hard. Los Angeles was 360,000 lower. San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, they all got hit hard. But the city of Pomona especially hard, the city of Oakland especially hard.”
NBC Los Angeles. “In the past decade, California has lost nearly a quarter-million of its youngest residents, those aged 5 to 9 years, according to a census analysis co-authored by USC’s Edward Flores and Dowell Myers. That’s more than an 8-percent decline. The problem is even worse in L.A. County, where the numbers show the decline in young children is 21 percent. The loss of children reflects the difficult living conditions for families facing high housing costs and diminishing job opportunities, Flores and Myers say.”
“Myers, a renowned author and demographer, says this loss of our young population is unprecedented in California. ‘We’re heading into uncharted territory,’ he said.”
LA Weekly. “We are ground zero of the ‘missing children’ of California,’ Myers has said. Myers says part of the reason for the decline is that tough economic conditions have driven families with young kids away in hopes of finding more affordable housing and better job prospects. As of March, California had the third worst job market in the nation.”
“The result of this exodus, claims Myers, is that there will be ‘fewer workers to support the retiring Baby Boomers.’”
The Mercury News. “There’s no easy fix to the housing crisis, but many South Bay experts say one of the most promising is a ’short sale’ — selling the home for less than the loan balance. More than 40 percent of attempted short sales fail to close, according to a recent survey by the California Association of Realtors. DataQuick estimates that there were about 15,839 short sales in California in the first quarter of this year, which suggests another 10,000 failed to close.”
“Another stumbling block is the second mortgage, which often has no underlying equity. Katie Haslam, with Zip Realty in Palo Alto, recently saw the short sale of a home in San Jose’s East Foothills fall apart at the last moment. The problem was that the primary and secondary lenders couldn’t agree on how much the lender holding the second mortgage would receive. With no equity underlying the $75,000 second, the bank holding the first mortgage offered $10,000. The second mortgage holder held out for $20,000, and the sale collapsed. The house was auctioned as a foreclosure in April. There were no offers.”
“‘It’s bad for the neighborhood because property values are going to go down; bad for the economy, and bad for the lender because they are going to sell it for less,’ said Jackie Walker, the Coldwell Banker agent who represented the sellers.”
The Desert Sun. “Home sales dipped slightly in the Coachella Valley during April but fared better than in Riverside County, the state and the nation, new data show. The swing in sales numbers — and prices — hasn’t been dramatic, but it illustrates the road to recovery remains uneven when it comes to the local housing market, said Greg Berkemer, executive VP of the California Desert Association of Realtors.”
“‘Although the market has yet to hit a consistent rhythm, available inventory, interest rates and attractive prices still make the dream possible — in a beautiful desert where rising rivers and tornadoes won’t take it away,’ Berkemer said.”
The Bakersfield Californian. “McAllister Ranch, the iconic failed housing development of the foreclosure crisis, has found new life. It will become Kern County’s newest water bank, owned and managed jointly by the Rosedale Rio Bravo and Buena Vista water storage districts.”
“The 2,070 acre development in extreme southwest Bakersfield was once expected to boast 6,000 homes, a golf course and man made lake. Now, the majority of it will remain undeveloped, according to Eric Averett, Rosedale’s general manager. ‘It’s an exciting project,’ he said. The water bank will be used to enhance local supplies, he said, instead of ‘buying into the very expensive state project.’”
“‘It’s an ideal water banking property,’ Averett said. ‘We didn’t think there were many opportunities like this left.’”
